News Release
Downtown Street Lamp Banners
Leading up to and through the festival this season, attendees will likely notice a little additional Downtown Beloit BIFF Bling. Beloit BIFF Bling. Rolls off the tongue nicely, yes?
Shauna El Amin – Executive Director, DBA
New this year BIFF will have our own colorful street lamp banners hung throughout downtown. Always on the lookout for how to raise awareness of the event we hit upon the idea of perhaps leveraging the existing downtown street lamp banners. Checking with our friends and collaborators at the Downtown Beloit Association they were happy to allow us to hang BIFF banners following the busy downtown holiday shopping season and before their springtime, farmer’s market theme banners need to go up. As BIFF brings a lot of excitement to downtown and it is perfect timing between these other two peak busy seasons it was enthusiastically welcomed. Having great community partners comes in very handy.
What we would actually present then became the next order of business. And again, community relationships and resources to the rescue.
Bonnie Willison, Artist
Many Beloiters will have likely seen the series of beautiful retro Beloit posters Betsy Donny Schmiechen, owner of The Villager Gallery & Frame Shop commissioned from a local artist Bonnie Willison. We thought, let’s get us some of that! Local artists, we’re all about that and she does great work, and if Betsy likes her well then, done!
We’ll be hanging two versions. And the plan is that we’ll hang them each season as long as they remain presentable or we decide to update. We hope you like them, we sure do.
In fact, after seeing the final result of Bonnie’s work we were so impressed we decided to use one version for this season’s festival poster!
So, huge thank yous to our friends at the Downtown Beloit Association, Betsy Schmiechen at The Villager and of course Bonnie Willision.
The Beloit International Film Festival this year marks its 15th season as the region’s major international cultural event. BIFF is sponsored by the Hendricks Family Foundation and Visit Beloit in association with Beloit College. Support for the Festival comes from area businesses and civic organizations, and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Critical individual support for BIFF is provided through gifts and membership in the BIFF Founders and the Film Society of Beloit.
